By Raynald C Rivera
Through the universal language of music promoting understanding among people is no big challenge and creating harmony even amid chaos not impossible.
This is what musician and poet Cheo Jeffery Allen Solder believes in and tries to accomplish through an NGO that he, together with his wife singer-professor Dr Anna Grichting Solder has established.
Desert Bridges, an NGO founded in Geneva and now in Qatar, is an ongoing created by the talented couple after spending decades of musical journey around the world individually and together.
“Desert Bridges is our formal attempt to establish something what we have been doing informally for a while. For the last few years we have been going to different festivals around the world playing with musicians from different cultures. So we decided to establish a non-profit organization in Switzerland,” said Solder.
Initially, the purpose of the NGO was to gather musicians from different cultures and discover a new kind of music, he explained, and what ensued was a mélange of music unidentifiable to any genre but which everyone from any culture appreciates because the musicians creating the music come from various cultural backgrounds.
“People talk about fusion music; I don’t like that word necessarily because I think we don’t really have to fuse, it’s more about the bridge and the encounter. It’s about keeping each other’s identity and creating new layers of music, new forms of blending,” Dr Grichting explained.
She is particularly interested in discovering more of the kind of music resonating from this region because it brings something new.
The couple’s encounter with the desert which inspired the establishment of the group began when they attended the Characters of Egypt festival in Fustat Wadi El Gemal which brought together Bedouin tribes from around Egypt. Then they played with Gnawa musicians in the Rendezvous de la Musique Festival in Morocco.
“When we came to Qatar where I am presently working at Qatar University, we were continuing our encounter with the desert and the idea of building Desert Bridges had even acquired more meaning,” said Dr Grichting.
For their first project, they collaborated with 10 artistes which resulted to a stellar performance applauded by the audience who filled the 500-seater Qatar National Theatre in April last year.
“It’s possible for people who come from different backgrounds to find a way of dealing with each other if they deal with each other respectfully and with their hearts. There were 12 of us onstage who all came from different countries playing beautiful music,” said Solder.
With an excellently presented show, which took limited time to prepare, the ensemble showed it is possible for the world to get along if they just look at each other’s similarities than differences.
“Music is a universal language. If we listen with our hearts then we will find some place where we come together,” said Solder, who wrote poetry for the concert which “spoke about the fact that we are one world and one family and the world is what we make it.”
“If I’m going to speak as an artist what I’m going to convey is that it’s one world, we can call it nations but I prefer to call it ‘imaginations.’ That’s what we imagine; we think we come from various countries but we all come from Earth and it’s not that big.”
“The world is what we make it. If we treat each other as family, how can we have strife? How can we have starvation? That’s the message we are trying to convey through our music and the actions that we take now and in the future.”
It is not easy to be part of Desert Bridges as it takes more than skill in playing an instrument but courage to go out of one’s comfort zone and embrace an entirely fresh take in music making.
“It takes musicians who have a lot of courage. We look for musicians who are willing to try. Sometimes it’s chaos but we come to a point when we produce music that’s so beautiful that everyone’s crying.”
The first major concert of Desert Bridges; which was a collaboration between the Swiss Embassy and the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage; resulted to the release of a live CD and DVD recently made available at Virgin Megastores and Falcon stores.
It was a breakthrough concert in Qatar as it was not merely music performance but also included poetry, storytelling and even live painting. The well-applauded concert brought together Swiss, African-American, Syrian, Indian, Qatari and Egyptian performers.
For their next project, Desert Bridges will perform an East meets West meets Flamenco concert probably in April or May this year. This project, Solder revealed, will incorporate new elements including dance and visual art.
“There will be around 12 to 14 musicians, some flamenco dancers and an art exhibit that would showcase the brilliant artists from this part of the world,” said Solder, adding there are also plans to stage a number of performances in other countries.
It is also Desert Bridges’ goal to establish an annual festival here which will witness people from all corners of the world singing about unity, he added.
People who take to the arts have many reasons, some want to be a star and there are those who want to talk about human condition they face in their journey.
“And I think we fit in the latter category. Desert Bridges is not about sensation, it’s about statement. Yes, we hope the audience enjoys what we do, but more importantly is the audience gets what we do and why we do it because that encourages everybody to do something that shows that we can come together.”The Peninsula
